Fallout 76 brings the nuclear wasteland online and invites you to hop in with your friends. Tweaks to old systems accentuate its cooperative play but not without some clumsiness. Are the survivors of Vault 76 stepping into a world filled with potential, or are they doomed to waste away in their new home? We find out.
This is a review in progress that will be updated as we play more of Fallout 76.
Fallout 76 isn’t as different from its predecessors as some would have you believe. Many of its systems and core gameplay make a return, albeit with a few tweaks, and not without the Fallout series’ signature clunkiness. But with the addition of online multiplayer and “softcore survival”, the single-player experience takes a backseat, and you won’t find any NPCs to keep you company.
Fallout 76 brings the nuclear wasteland online, and if you have friends to play with, it can be a great time. If you’re expecting to enjoy a balanced single-player experience,,though, think again. There are obvious benefits to grouping that make public events, claiming workshops, resource collecting, C. A. M. P. building, and everything else more enjoyable with friends.
Playing solo, you’ll quickly place the weight of Appalachia and everything happening inside of it on your shoulders. You’ll jump from quest to quest, to accidentally walking into a public event, to fighting off irradiated enemies, to developing a mutation, to frantically looking for food and water.
It’s just a lot to take on alone, and though the game is multi-player only, you won’t frequently run into strangers. Other players in your session are marked on your map, so you can try to make friends if you want, but these impromptu parties rarely last.
If you do have friends to jump in with, though, you’ll find the exceptional number of systems ensure there’s no shortage of things to do. Jumping in with a group means you get to share XP, Perk cards, pool resources, and complete objectives with the utmost efficiency.
Need a spare weapon, food, or water? Invite a friend to trade. Getting ambushed by a mob of the Scorched? Call your friends over to help take them down. Groups can build bigger and better shelters more easily and will have less trouble maintaining the game’s most exotic and powerful equipment, including the much-coveted Power Armor.
Fallout 76 is truly at its best when you’re taking advantage of all its survival systems and cooperative play. There’s genuine fun to found in staking your claim to your corner of post-apocalypse West Virginia.
For a game that emphasizes missions and events, there is something left to be desired about the way Fallout 76 handles them. Main, Side, and Daily missions quickly stack up as you explore the vast wasteland, occupying a large amount of real estate on the side of the screen. Disabling them requires opening the map, searching for the objective, and manually halting the tracking of each. You can also open the Data tab in your Pip-Boy and toggle them to inactive.
It’s a dated approach to quest management that could learn a thing or two from the latest Assassin’s Creed games, which prompt you before tracking newly unlocked objectives. Fallout games have long struggle with interface issues, but with the many other open-world games that offer a more streamlined experience, it’s hard to keep picking the one that bumbles something so essential.
The problem is at its worst on PC. While aiming is easier due to the precision of a mouse, everything else feels designed with a controller in mind. The Pip-Boy is a real nuisance. You’ll find yourself constantly activating the wrong menu even after hours of play.
HUD positioning is awkward, placing the compass, hunger, and thirst indicators along the bottom of the screen. I never remembered to drink water or eat food until my character was starving. Also, the compass doesn’t differentiate quest markers, so you always have to open up the map to see which marker to pursue. When you’re talking to friends and playing the game, it’s easy to follow the wrong marker. That can lead to major back-tracking when you finally realize you’ve been misled for the last five minutes.
Fallout 76 shows some refinement to older systems that make playing alongside friends a really good time, but it’s at the cost of a balanced single-player experience. It could use an overhaul to its quest system and HUD to make its many fundamental mechanics less of a chore to manage.
As cliché as it may be, Fallout 76 is basically Fallout 4. That’s the reality. It shares many of the same strengths and many of the same flaws, but the addition of online play and a new map offers a fresh spin on the franchise.
Players who regularly roll with a group of friends, or adore the Fallout franchise, are likely to find a place in this wasteland. We’re not sure everyone else will see the appeal, however — or if Fallout 76 will keep players coming back once the launch luster fades.
Editors Note: This is a review in progress. Our full review will be posted at a later date.
